#wechaoticblazebouquet

[bthump]

Just wanted to know your thoughts, but aside from Griffith’s mental state, was Guts really that much of a better swordsman than Griffith? Judeau’s commentary makes a lot of note about how the situation is not in Griffith’s favor cause the snow limits his speed and movement, which is his whole thing, and that Griffith is acting really weird.

But he still notes that Griffith is utterly flawless as a fighter and that it’s gonna be a real coin toss on who can win. Even Guts, who should probably have the best estimation, though perhaps he isn’t the most reliable narrator, notes that he can’t underestimate Griffith for even a second.

So are they evenly matched as fighters or has Guts’ constant focus on nothing but fighting and training made him better than Griffith?

Honestly given the placement here as a conclusive statement at the end of Judeau's musing and as the last panel of a chapter, I think it's basically accurate to say they're evenly matched:

And that's true of this particular exchange in the snow, while Guts is calm and focused and resolute and Griffith is having an internal meltdown, and as you said, Griffith is at a disadvantage because he relies more on speed and movement.

So I'd guess that in other circumstances, say in a regular field without snow and where they're both feeling confident and good, Griffith is still the slightly better swordsman at this point.

I also think it's arguably implied that Griffith could've won this duel if he was willing to kill Guts, but he couldn't bring himself to strike a killing blow.

All that said, imo during Guts' year long training sabbatical he probably did surpass Griffith, torture chamber aside. When he comes back he kills like another hundred midland soldiers plus Wyald, and starts getting compared to a monster. So even if Griffith was still in top physical form, I imagine that Guts would've been the better fighter a year after this duel.

Thanks for the ask!

[alovelyburn]

If Casca had taken up Guts’ offer to leave with him on his endless wandering to be stronger, I legit think that would not have been a good decision.

Miura has spoken before that, despite appearances, Casca and Guts are forever stuck in that stage people are in before they really fall in love. I can understand what he means because I feel that they never did leave the honeymoon phase of their relationship, still swept up in the bliss of getting together and the excitement of busting Griffith out of jail.

Even if Griffith was magically okay, mentally stable enough to let them both go, I don’t really think it would have worked out very well for either of them. Casca’s been hanging on to Griffith’s every word for about half her life and suddenly changing all that with Guts, without the companionship she was used to would have been a hurdle to handle. The decision to just dump everything she’s known and join Guts would seem like a romantic honeymoon act which would lose its luster after the euphoria’s died down.

That’s not even mentioning the biggest hurdle, aka, Griffith. Like, I maintain that Guts thrived as much as he did while by himself because he thought Griffith was okay on his own and they’ll meet again as equals in the distant future. If he knew that he wasn’t okay, that Griffith does need him by his side, he’d be much too distracted to swing his sword around and get stronger. Same with Casca. He is just too integral of a part in their lives to just ignore.

I think there's a couple of perspectives on this and as usual I'm sort of a fence-sitter. Like I know a lot of people think they would've had a fairy tale power couple adventuring thing going on if they'd left together and I also know a lot of people think they would've ultimately fallen apart because the relationship already had a shaky ground. I think it did have a shaky ground - Guts is pretty clear that he doesn't know for sure whether it's going to work out, and Casca's pretty clear that she's not even sure where her heart really is... it's not like the two of them were ever being rock solid confident that they'd found The One even in their best moments, and they're both still obsessing over Griffith the whole time... so yeah, it may very well have been unsustainable long term. At the same time, I'm also aware that sometimes relationships end up doing well despite having dodgy beginnings.

My main lazyass outlook on this is that we don't know whether they would have been one of those couples or one of the couples who can't get it together because they were never able to find out. And because they never find out whether they were truly compatible long-term or what they could've/would've/should've been, Guts is forever stuck with a what if without any answer.

Now that's all fence-sitting. What I actually think is:

If Griffith's state was as it is in canon...

-If they stayed with the Hawks, they would have fallen apart because they'd both prioritize Griffith over each other (and themselves). This IMO is pretty clear just from canon. In this case, I see a kind of prolonged relationship with diminishing investment until it just kind of fades away.

-If they left anyway, they would have fallen apart because they'd both feel like shit and be too worried about Griffith to concentrate. In this case, I see a lot of unspoken guilt and resentment toward each other because they'd blame each other (and themselves) for making each other (and themselves) leave Griffith that way.

If Griffith were in a recoverable state, though, things get more interesting to me.

-If they stayed with the Hawks, they would have fallen apart because they both just like Griffith more than each other, IDK what else to say about it. They were only able to get together because of his absence, and if they were hanging around him all the time, that absence is negated, and they'd just fall back into fixating on him -this seems pretty strongly supportable because they were already heading down that road before they found him, and thus before they knew what had been done to him. In this case I kind of feel like they'd just end up sliding back into being friends.

-if they left, I think that would be the best chance they'd have at a successful relationship. Because at this point they'd both given up on Griffith, and he's fine so they're not distracted by worrying about him and could focus on each other and their goals (or, well, Guts' goal). I don't think this is a guaranteed success, but it's the only path I see leading to a success for their relationship.

The wildcard is what... Griffith does. Because if we're talking about an alternate canon where Griffith is rescued early, or just not as badly done by as he was in canon, then he's already ruined his shot at marrying Charlotte and inheriting Midland. So what's he going to do next? He could go to another country and start buttering up another princess, but given his internal monologue in the dungeon I suspect he'd be more likely to try and grapple with his feelings about Guts in which case the entire gameboard changes. I mean for one thing, the "if they left" option would probably be wiped off the map.

[bthump]

New Berserk chapter just came out.

https://readberserk.com/chapter/berserk-chapter-376/

Huh, guess it does confirm that Rickert wasn’t hiding in secrecy from the Kushans, but was helping them directly. That’s my small fan theory out of the way.

Thanks for the link!

It does seem to be pushing the most straightforward (and imo boring) possible plotline lol, army vs army, big battle, magic vs magic, snore.

I would like to maintain hope that the straightforward plot will be complicated as we go on - like this story can't seriously expect me to root for Daiba over Griffith lol, if he doesn't have a hidden agenda or dark side that comes into play and we're meant to just brush his whole mass torture rape murder artificial behelit thing under the rug, then oof. Like, we had a scene where Silat saw it and defected from Ganishka over it, and now he's working with the mastermind behind it? Does he know? Is this going to factor into anything? What?

Plus it seems too early to set up for a final climactic battle, based on how much Miura suggested he had left to write before he died, so I'm betting it'll end with Guts and co losing or something derailing it, but who knows, maybe they're speedrunning the ending, or there'll be 50 chapters of build up first.

Also Guts being saved by magic from his own rage AGAIN is killing me, like, for fuck's sake. This is no way to pace a story, I'm dying here.

On the plus side it's cool that they're still drawing actual Puck instead of chestnut Puck, and it's always nice to see Silat. But yeah, not super enthused by this chapter lol.

[bthump]

I think I can see some sort of twisted story logic to the Eclipse rape.

Miura has said before he wanted to make a story about anger, and got Guts. He wanted to trace backwards why he was angry, and came up with the Golden Age arc, but I think he ran into a roadblock with how he wrote the characters.

Guts, as he was written at the time, couldn’t really get angry at Griffith for the sacrifice because there was still some plausible deniability that Guts would have clung on to. He would have just kept saying “no, that’s bullshit, Griffith would never do this, I know him, he would never want this” while everyone died around him.

Casca getting raped, as disgusting as it is to say, is what moved their relationship along to the murderous, rage filled mess it is now. It proved without a doubt that Griffith did want this, he approves of it, and seemingly doesn’t care anymore. It paves the way for the Guts of the Black Swordsman arc and the Guts of the rest of the series.

Still, just cause I understand Miura’s possible internal logic doesn’t mean I approve. Just felt so tasteless.

Yeah I pretty much agree with this I think. The impression I always got from the first two arcs is that early on Miura intended for Guts' rage to stem from Griffith betraying him and sacrificing him, hence the focus on ghosts taunting him about belonging to them, the parallels between being 'given' to malevolent spirits as a sacrifice and Gambino selling him to Donovan, Guts screaming about having to fight an army of the dead thanks to Femto, etc.

Then after the Golden Age Miura reevaluated and decided that that wasn't enough to make Guts vow revenge against Griffith anymore, so he threw a rape scene on top of everything.

Idk if that's actually what his thought process was, I'm sure there are many factors that went into the Eclipse rape including plain old edginess and, frankly, maybe even fanservice/potentially just adhering to the vibe of the magazine it's published in.

But yeah, that's how it comes across to me lol. Though idk if I'd say it's plausible deniability - before the rape Guts does seem to accept that Griffith sacrificed him. He's just sad and wistful about it rather than violently angry:

So yeah I feel like it's more that Guts can't fully blame Griffith for it, because he blames himself for leaving Griffith first, and because yk, he loves Griffith.

[bthump]

Have you played Baldur’s Gate 3? The character Astarion does somewhat remind me of Griffith. Has the same ethereal, androgynous, seductive beauty with both of them and both carry heavy trauma related to sex, which they both cover up, though one does it with cold logic and dreams the other with bitter sarcasm.

Even has an ending where he commits a sacrifice of innocence people to ascend into something more and become as bad as his abuser.

Huh, now I kinda wonder about having Griffith or a Griffith like character as a companion. We slowly become the person he opens up to and the ending could be him becoming king but depressed, become a godhand, worst case scenario, or giving up everything and settling down with Guts/us.

I've kinda played it with someone lol, I chose dialogue options while my friend dealt with the combat, but we only got like 2/3rds of the way through. I do have some knowledge of Asterion's evil ending though, and yeah I can definitely see where that comparison comes from. They do have some gr8 similarities.

Honestly a Berserk Golden Age rpg like that would be so fun lol. It would never happen but if it did I'd definitely do whatever I could to play it.

[bthump]

Not sure if it’s an unpopular opinion, but I genuinely prefer Guts’ early design to his latter appearance. He actually looks like he’s a young adult entering his 20s, his appearance around the time of the Millennium Falcon Arc aged him up by like 10 or 15 years, looks like a JoJo character with that jaw.

And I might sound crazy for saying this, but I’d say the OVA movies captured Griffith’s appearance more than the anime did, he just looks too masculine in the anime, doesn’t really have that ethereal, androgynous beauty, looks too similar to everyday anime pretty boys than the oftentimes androgynous man people drool over in the manga.

Yeah I completely agree, and I feel like there's no way this can be that unpopular of an opinion? At least around this corner of tumblr, I know I've seen plenty of others who agree that the OVA character designs are better than the anime (give or take Casca, or at least her lightened skin tone) and dislike the art shift in later arcs, esp wrt Guts. And I'm definitely one of them.

Like I really love the anime's style and animation, but yeah when it comes to Guts and Griffith's character designs the OVAs easily win for me. And yeah part of it is def just that Griffith isn't pretty enough lol. And yeah I feel like that art shift is more a late MF arc/Fantasia arc thing, but either way there does come a point in the manga where Guts starts looking like he's in his late 30s and it's unfortunate.

[bthump]

One of the most annoying things in the fandom is people saying “Okay, maybe Griffith had romantic feelings for Guts, but Guts never felt the same way about Griffith.”

Jesus Christ, did I read a different story? How can you go through the story and not come to the conclusion that Guts is just as obsessed with Griffith as Griffith is with Guts? In the Golden Age Arc, if Guts ain’t brooding or killing people, his mind inevitably goes to Griffith. If he’s talking with someone, Griffith is gonna be mentioned one way or another.

Besides that, when he is speaking about Griffith, it’s never in a neutral or non-caring way, it is so obvious that Guys has strong feelings for him. He can’t help but smile at the thought of Griffith and, if he ain’t smiling, he’s thinking about how cool he is and that he wants to stand with him.

MTE!

If someone's only ever seen the 97 anime I can kind of understand how they might come away with the impression that the feelings were one-sided on Griffith's side, since the anime, imo, really downplayed Guts' side of things, but in the manga? If anything Guts' feelings seem even more blatantly romantic and sexual than Griffith's to me.

He is certifiably obsessed and even admits it to himself, so yeah. Those feelings are definitely not one-sided.

Also since it's on topic I want to link to this post I wrote about how the Golden Age works best structurally if their feelings for each other are mutual.

[alovelyburn]

Crazy theory that I have is that Griffith is fully conscious and aware of what he’s doing as the Moon Child.

There’s really no solid evidence for it, but I like to believe that when the moon is up and he transforms into the child, he just kinda accepts it and goes to where Guts and Casca are to check up on them.

Lotta people see them as two separate personalities, and that’s probably the case, but I like the idea of it being the manifestation of Griffith’s humanity taking over and keeping track over his old loved ones.

I do think the nature of the moonkid is less clean-cut than a lot of people think. While the predominant theory in the west is obviously that these are two different personalities co-residing in a single body... the last time I checked, the Japanese fandom tended to refer to him more as though he's something Griffith is doing for some reason. Whether it's because he's allowing it or because Moonkid is literally a part of Griffith himself. There actually is more evidence for that than people like to acknowledge, though I wouldn't say anything definitive.

I'm not 100% sure where i stand on it, but i think... for me, even if it is literally just an aspect of Griffith, it does seem like an aspect his primary personality isn't fully in control of, since he refers to it as dreamlike.

Actually, it reminds me a lot of the way Casca refers to her memory of her time as "Elaine"/in her regressed state?

[bthump]

Do you think Griffith ever, at least subconsciously, think his dream of getting a castle was pretty stupid?

When we get our first clear glimpse into Griffith’s head, he calls the castle he obsessively stared into as a child as the greatest piece of junk he knew. He literally compared it to the things he and his friend would distract themselves with to keep them occupied until the day went by and they were done playing.

Does this mean, when he doesn’t have anything to distract him, no expectations, no great battle or political intrigue to keep him busy, he realizes that his dream is just a silly little thing?

Interesting point! Yeah, I think that'd be a fair interpretation. Idk if I'd say it's something he consciously recognizes, because these are Griffith's thoughts after a year of torture and after throwing his dream away and realizing Guts is far more important to him, so I'm not sure it's something he would've fully realized about himself before that kind of enforced self-reflection.

But I think that you could make a good case for it, and it's an interesting angle. It's definitely something I can imagine flickering through Griffith's mind in the minutes before he falls asleep, that he tries hard to ignore.

And yeah subconsciously I'm definitely on board lol. Idk if he'd be fully aware of it, but there's a sense of desperation to the river scene with Casca, and to a lesser extent even his Promrose Hall speech, or his monologue to Guts in chapter 8, where on some level he's trying to convince himself that his dream is worthwhile.

I've always really liked the idea that the dream began as childish fancy, and before Griffith could grow out of it people started dying for it, and he had to mentally justify those deaths to himself. So he started building the dream up in his head as this grandiose, all-important achievement he could accomplish. Something that justified itself - if he achieves it, then it proves that he was destined for greatness, and everyone's deaths along the way were necessary.

And the fact that in the torture chamber Griffith describes it as a piece of junk is just so good. Like he's finally been able to see through all the lies he told himself to repress his sense of guilt for as long as possible.

And then the icing on top of the cake is God showing up and telling him his frantic justifications were right, actually, and it is his destiny after all lol. Absolutely ideal irony right there, emphatic chef kiss, no wonder NeoGriffith is on a whole new metaphysical level of repression.

[alovelyburn]

I might be reaching, but I do find it interesting that, when Guts gets sad or wistful or thoughtful about his past and thinks about Griffith, a lot of the time, Griffith’s face seems to be obscured.

Like when he thinks back about how he left Griffith, his face isn’t really shown, sometimes we only see him from the back, and when he recalls facing Griffith, and he was close enough to see how emotional Griffith looked, his face was just a giant blur. Or even when remembering all the Hawk in the cave, Griffith’s face still isn’t fully shown, we only see the back of his armor and his cape.

I do think that it symbolizes Guts’ extremely complex feelings about Griffith. He was the person he thought of the most, quite literally in the Golden Age arc as Guts almost couldn’t go one scene without mentioning Griffith, and with those extremely fond memories, comes his betrayal of all the people Guts loved.

Guts still treasures those times, his memories of the Hawks filled with love and longing for those beautiful times, but with how things turned out, he has a hard time thinking about Griffith because of what he did, yet that makes things hard for him because Griffith was so central to the Hawks and to Guts himself that he just doesn’t know how to truly understand his feelings about Griffith so he just blurs the face of the most significant person in his life.

I don't think that's reaching at all - I've talked about that a couple of times in the middle of various meta rants. He also often imagines Femto either in his most monstrous form (mask, no face under it) or with his face in shadows.

I don't think Guts can sort his feelings out, and more than that, he can't face them. Because his feelings and memories are so complicated and conflicted he tries to focus on the rage and, when he can't do that, he just tries not to "look" at all.

When we do get into his head directly (via Schierke), his perspective on Griffith is pretty clear - she describes him as shining. I think.... the fact that Griffith still shines in Guts' eyes is in itself complicated and something he feels some kind of way about.

[bthump]

I honestly question why Zodd is still in the story, yeah he’s popular with fans, but I legit have no idea what else he’s supposed to be doing.

Is he supposed to be some sort of measuring stick for Guts’ strength? A leftover from the Golden Age arc? What purpose is this dude supposed to fulfill now?

I once confused Wyald with Zodd and I feel that he could’ve taken Wyald’s place in the story just fine. The band managed to bust out of Midland, boom! Zodd shows up, measures up Guts, and pushes him and the band to their absolute limits while Griffith can’t do shit to help like he did in the past. Would do Wyald’s narrative purpose better, probably without all the sexual assault Casca has to go through.

Idk I think Zodd has a few important roles in the story. He's a foilto Guts for one. He's someone who's succumbed to his blood-lusty dark side. He's a parallel to Guts as a monster in touch with his humanity, while Guts is a human in danger of succumbing to his monstrousness.

Sonia has that little scene where she calls Guts Zodd's counterpart and says they both have to make a choice between human volition or monstrous instinct, which explains the thematic significance of the two of them allying up to fight Ganishka. Zodd shows that monsters aren't inevitably monstrous.

Granted some of the other apostles do too, like Locus and Irvine, but I think it hits more effectively with Zodd because we've seen him at his most monstrous.

Plus Guts is driven to kill Zodd after having been defeated by him, but that drive is a contributing factor to Guts' own monstrousness, so there's good character stuff in place to make a potential final showdown between them feel epic and exciting and significant on a thematic and character level.

I don't think he'd work in place of Wyald either, based on how he's established in his previous two appearances. He backs off when he realizes who Griffith is, and then saves Guts' life by throwing him a sword at the battle of Doldrey. He's intent on preserving the Hawks for sacrifice, and actively doing what he can to help fate along. Wyald doesn't give a fuck which is why he kills a bunch of Hawks.

Also, I feel like Guts has to defeat Wyald, that's largely the point of the whole sequence. It's showing how powerful, but also how "inhuman" Guts is becoming himself.

Ultimately Zodd finishes him off to save Griffith, but he was dying from the wounds Guts inflicted at the time, so Guts functionally won.

I feel like it's a significant prelude to the Black Swordsman stuff that wouldn't work with Zodd, because Zodd would just kick Guts' ass. And there's no reason for Zodd to show up and fight the Hawks to test their limits either. They're all going to die in a day, as far as he's concerned, and Zodd is established as the type who doesn't hold back in a fight. Like the instant Guts breaks his sword in the keep, he transforms into his monster self and prepares to kill him, even though he's intrigued at Guts' skill.

To be fair you could completely rework Zodd's role in the story to make him more of a chump who Guts can defeat, then he's killed off and no more Zodd. But again, I like his role in the story post-Eclipse too. Griffith's main enforcer, a parallel and contrast to Guts, and someone Guts can eventually fight in a demonstration of how fucked up Guts has become.

Plus he's fun lol. I love the scene where they team up at the docks, eg. I like that he's a familiar touchstone for Guts in a way, as someone he interacted with a few times pre-Eclipse and who's now taken his place working for Griffith. It's neat.

But yeah that's just my opinion lol, if you're just not into him then that's fair!

[bthump]

A small little divergence I’m interested in is if Griffith, after his transformation, just. . .ignored Guts. When he originally came out, he did one of the most vindictive and vile things imaginable, and still tries to taunt Guts every now and again when they meet.

Now, I wonder how Guts would’ve reacted if, instead of raping Casca, Griffith just doesn’t acknowledge him. He comes out of the egg, he doesn’t even spare Guts a glance, he immediately joins the rest of the Godhand, and observes the sacrifice.

I wonder how Guts would’ve taken that? I’m guessing less immediately angry, but, when he manages to get out of it, he’d be about as angry as he actually was? More of a slow burn to vicious rage?

Honestly you can make a case that it would've been worse for Guts lol. Mainly because the Beast of Darkness suggests that Guts is keeping Casca at his side because she's "the wound Griffith left, so you can keep feeling the pain he caused you."

And one interpretation of that is just that Guts wants to keep his revenge-y rage going, but another interpretation, and one that certainly fits the Beast describing Guts as longing for Griffith in romantically charged language lol, is that knowing Femto raped Casca just to hurt him is something Guts can cling to, as proof that Griffith is affected by him.

Guts' worst thing is being ignored, it's what gets him to shift from rage to pleading for attention both in chapter 7/8 and at the end of the Hill of Swords scene, and it's really thematically relevant considering what he's longing for is someone to look at him.

Though idk if his reaction would've been anger so much as despair. I feel like if Femto had just ignored him, Guts might've given up rather than go on a revenge spree. I honestly believe that what Guts wants to get out of the revenge spree, deep down, is Griffith looking at him again, even if it's while dying or while killing him (as always just look at how his war declaration is punctuated with the memory of Griffith describing true friendship as men who would fight each other for their dreams). So yeah if he was convinced that it wasn't a possibility now that Griffith is a demon, he might either just die or hang up his sword and retire in Godo's cave.

I mean Guts does still have that innate drive to live ofc, so maybe he'd go out apostle-hunting anyway, but I don't think his heart would be as in it. Like, just look at how mopey he was when NGriff didn't give him the time of day and rode off on Zodd lol.

And that was when he had a better goal to shift focus onto. He might have more of a death-seeker vibe in this version of the Black Swordsman arc.

[bthump]

It’s pretty funny that a lot of the latest arc before Miura died was dedicated to repairing Casca’s broken mind. People got hyped, she’s back! She’s got her mind, she can fight again, she still loves Guts, a few problems, but people were excited she could finally take an active role in the story again.

Sike! Nope, she’s still a living plot device, get’s kidnapped by Griffith and she can’t fucking do anything, Guts just stands there and freaks out about how his sword failed him, maybe sparing her a few thoughts in classic Berserk man pain.

I know we’re not that far into it, and maybe the new chapter coming out in a bit will make me eat my words, but it looks like to me Casca ain’t playing a role as anything but a plaything between Guts and Griffith.

Yeah I definitely wouldn't be placing money on her being a major driver of the plot in any active way from here on out. Maybe she'll play an active part in escaping Falconia? But even then I kinda doubt it since the narrative purpose of putting her there seems to be to motivate Guts to go to Falconia.

I'd love to be pleasantly surprised, but yk, the track record with her so far has not been great lol so I'm keeping my expectations low.

[bthump]

Honestly, I think a problem with discourse around Berserk is that a lot of people seem to positively worship Guts.

He’s not seen as a regular protagonist like, say, Naruto, or Goku, or Denji from Chainsaw Man. Those characters are criticized and made fun of with nary a peep of protest, they’re just as fallible as any other person in their stories.

But with Guts, people seem to act as if he’s some sort of hero come to life, they make excuses for his actions, unironically call him a sigma male or giga chad, wants everything to fall his way and give him a fairy tale ending.

Yeah I agree that it's a big factor in the way a lot of fandom sees Guts, and the story as a whole, in very black and white ways. And it's definitely not in line with canon, which does portray him as very flawed, very deliberately.

tbh I’m not tuned in enough to cishet dude fans of other stuff to really be able to make comparisons between their reactions to Guts vs any other protagonist, but yeah it’s pretty ridiculous lol and I’m not sure what about him inspires so much defensiveness.

Maybe it’s just that he’s well written enough that people get really invested in him, but without reading comprehension they don’t realize that his flaws are half of why he’s an interesting, complex character lol. idk.

[alovelyburn]

I’m surprised that you mentioned people interpreted Casca’s “I wanna be with him as best I can, I wanna be the sword at his hip to help him achieve his dream” as non-romantic.

I mean, to me at least, that piece of dialogue, with Casca looking like she’s blushing at the thought of Griffith, seemed blatantly romantic. Yeah, she says that it was a smokescreen of her real want to be Griffith’s lover, but I thought it was pretty obvious she was infatuated with Griffith and that wanting to be his sword carried implication of being a romantic partner rather than just really useful swordswoman.

I mean, fucking hell, how do you look at this panel and think “Yeah, she just wants to be useful to the one who saved her, no romantic intentions included.”

I'm not sure whether you're talking about the people who think Casca was never in love with Griffith or the ones who thought she had a motivation other than wanting to be with Griffith (not totally the same thing), so I'm going to address both. Ahem!

For the first one, I'd say it's less that people don't realize the romantic implications of Casca's behavior here than that they think she's wrong about it. From what I've seen the general line from people who don't believe Casca was in love with Griffith is something like, "Casca idolized and idealized Griffith and mistook her admiration for love, and only realized that she wasn't really in love with him when she fell in love with Guts and saw what real love is like."

The thing is I do understand where they're coming from on that because of the vague way she talks about it in the meadow scene, but at the same time it doesn't make any sense. Because while Casca may idolize Griffith she idealized him less than anyone else in the Hawks, and also because in context there's no way for "I lied about what I said in the cave" to mean anything other than that she was (at one point, at least) in love with him, since her statement is basically "I lied when I said I wanted to be his sword. I'm not stupid, I knew he was going to marry the princess so i thought if I couldn't be a woman to him then maybe a sword, as long as I was something indispensable." The only real question is whether, or when, she stopped being in love with him and the answer is never, because she still was right up until the Eclipse. It just became more complicated because of Guts and because of Griffith's situation.

But yeah, I mean I do think it's obvious that she's in love with him no matter how she says it. Hell, even Guts picks it up, and he's clueless about emotions 90% of the time.

Anyway that belief, IMO is just shipper purism. It's a Berserk take on "I thought I knew love, but I never knew love until I met you" soulmatery. You get it in every fandom, and sometimes even in creators especially in spheres like western comics where the fans grow up and write their fanfic into the published stories. For some reason shippers often have a hard time with the idea that people in their pairing ever loved someone other than the other person in their pairing, idk.

Now for the latter, I think they do tend to realize that she was in love with him, it's just that they were hoping that wasn't her only motivation. Because if you like her in theory - the idea of her or I guess the idea of what she could hypothetically have become, then you're going to be hoping that she had more substance to her motives than that. And then she didn't, so its like, "oh."

...

The thing is, I think she's meant to have somewhat substantial motives, like I don't think Miura sat there like how do I make a woman who is just completely defined by her romantic feelings for two men. He talked at some length about not wanting to treat female characters disrespectfully and not wanting to make ladies who were designed to be convenient for men, and how he always hoped that women would like them. He also sought outside help from Mori in designing them since he didn't really know any women. And because he wrote that period of Berserk kind of like a shojo, I can understand why he would think being motivated by romance isn't weird - and honestly if we're keeping it 100, Guts is motivated by Griffith a lot of the time, too.

I think what really makes it go down poorly with Casca is just how visible the strings are. Because with Guts, his character is so substantial and has so much going on that his being pulled around by his heart where Griffith and Casca are concerned is just like a ripple in a great lake. Griffith's not dissimilar - so much of his character is driven by his feelings for Guts, but he also has other things going on, most notably his ambitions. Even the later-series heroine, Farnese, has a crush on Guts but she's also studying witchcraft and she has her own individual relationships with Schierke, Casca and Serpico. She had a whole arc about leaving the church and another about leaving her family. etc. etc.

But with Casca, there's really nothing going on with her other than her feelings for Griffith and Guts, and her life being stressful because of her feelings for Griffith and Guts, so she comes off as a bit flimsy.

[alovelyburn]

I do find it kinda funny how quickly Guts and Griffith got over accidentally killing an innocent kid in their murder plot.

I mean, Guts was fucking sulking and freaking out, wanting to tell Griffith the awful news, and when he finds him spelling out to Charlotte what a friend is to him, the kid is quickly forgotten. Guts is too busy thinking “Wait, am I not Griffith’s BFF?” to be sad about it and Griffith is just happy no one’s gonna try and kill him anymore and “Throne of Midland, here I come!”

The kid doesn’t even appear in any of Griffith or Guts’ guilty flashbacks, they just completely forgot about it. Shit, now that I think about it, the kid feels more like a plot device for Guts to be in the proper state for Griffith’s speech to hit maximum impact.

Well, in Griffith's case, he literally smiled when the news came out so I don't think he really needed to get over it.

To be clear, I'm not one of the people who think he somehow intuited that going after Julius would end up killing Adonis too, but he didn't exactly seem broken up about it. if anything Adonis dying was convenient for him since the kid was engaged to the princess he was trying to land.

In Guts' case I guess you could say that, while he was troubled at the time, he doesn't care as much about who he accidentally kills as he does about his relationship with Griffith. More than that, I think... while Guts has what I'd call a softer spot for kids, it's not like he ever hesitates to kill them if he has to. In the case of Adonis, I think the cause of his tumult over it was the combination of him projecting onto Adonis during that spar with Julius and the fact that he didn't realize the person he was killing was the kid, so he wasn't emotionally prepared for it. But like if you fast forward to Lost Children, he's kind of disturbed when the pseudo-apostles turn out to be human kids, but he still kills them.

That said I think there's something worth looking at about the similarities between Griffith and the broken soldier child and Guts and Adonis. These are both events where the primary character (Guts or Griffith) is the accidental cause of the death of a child that sort of embodies the child in them, right, like

-the soldier kid is an innocent child playing with broken toys and naively looking to his dreams without understanding the road one needs to walk to achieve that dream and how much you need to lose and what you need to do to get there. When the child dies, it represents Griffith's violent awakening to the reality of how bloody and cruel the path to his dream really is. It is, in a lot of ways, the death of Griffith's innocence and the creation of the Griffith we meet later, who is ruthless and pragmatic, and morally compromised.

-Adonis is a child desperately trying to live up to what his harsh and demanding father wants from him - just like Guts was and, in many ways, remained. In a lot of ways Griffith ends up stepping into that role - the role of the person Guts is staring up and seeking approval or validation from, something which he at that point has started to feel more secure with. And when he kills Adonis that moment really represents the shift in him from feeling as though his desire can be achieved as he is, and toward feeling that he has to change his life and himself in order to accomplish the thing he wants.

So like, in both cases the kid is something of the embodiment of the thing that Griffith or Guts yearns for and, at that point, believes they may be able to achieve with minimal upending of themselves, their lives, and their values. When the kid dies, that belief also dies, and they both radically change their approach in ways that end up bringing them greater success, while also nudging them toward tragedy. So I guess I would say that is what Adonis is there for.

Ultimately I think every character that isn't Guts is a plot device, it just depends on how much camouflage they get to disguise their purpose, which is in itself going to depend on how prominent the character is. And that's the case with all fiction, not just Berserk.

In my experience one of the biggest causes of fanbase discontent is that fans get attached to secondary or tertiary characters (or even background characters) that the creator(s) only ever meant to use as a tool toward making the narrative behave the way they need it to behave. The schism creates frustration because the fans are looking for more attention and focus to be on characters who were never intended to get a lot of attention or focus.

It's kind of the same thing with specific interactions, concepts or events - people get interested in a specific thing and want to see follow-up or greater exploration of that thing, but sometimes the thing is just there to catalyze something else. That can be bad writing depending on what the thing is and what it was catalyzing, but it isn't always.